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en:pegDigital follows up their inaugural batch of MP3 releases with five more
records, individually offered at a price count cheaper than an
espresso from Starbucks. It’s an interesting batch of records that
wander all over the map, offering a little something for everyone.
Send en:peg a tenner and enjoy the bunch (there’s more than three and
a half hours of new music here for ten bucks, kids!), but if you’re on
a budget and are only giving up one latte a day, here’s the rundown on
what to expect…
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Bend, Sinister offers up Glitchpop, thirty minutes of
glitch-distressed, vaguely electroclash, lounge style pop songs. The
duo of Justin Harrison (the classical background and the voice) and
Tom Dinchak (the self-taught knob-twiddler and the freeform
experimentalist) offer a chaotic blend of complex electronic signals
(“The Way It Should Be”), a downtempo duet between trumpet and glitch
atmospheres (“Out Of The Medicine”) and Venetian Snares influenced
breakbeats (“Onset”). It’s an interesting mix of styles held together
by the presence of Harrison’s affected vocals. Bend, Sinister’s
Glitchpop is a release that definitely benefits from the inexpensive
mind set of en:peg digital releases: the $2.00 you drop to find out
how strangely alluring Bend, Sinister’s style of pop songs are is
cheap experimentation.
Proem’s Darker Still EP is a wash of ambient sounds and, in the
beginning, the slowly evolving tones of “Spectral Bleed” and “Ripple
In a Warm Place” glide down on the listener like gentle gossamer
sheets. The gauzy material isn’t completely sheer and, by the time
you’ve reached the middle of the EP, a little claustrophobia has set
in. “Darker Still” is a darker shade of pale, a nocturnal membrane
that begins to obscure the previously light and airy washes of sound.
Stringed instruments shiver in the darkness and distant brass sections
burp and rumble like they’re rehearsing for Stravinsky’s Rites of
Spring. “I Forget Where I Am” and “1sample.7notes” return us to the
more spacious ambience of the earlier tracks. This one has nocturnal
slumber music written all over it.
Spark’s bio at the en:peg site lists 44 one word sentences to describe
Matt Wilcox’s raison d’etre and, like his bio, his music has this same
fractured shotgun blast style. I was caught by the snare of the title
of his second en:peg release, Morbid Chillout, and thought it would
actually be, you know, “chill.” Silly me. While the drone landscape
of “Lights,” the hollow bell tones of the first half of “Introverted,”
the tender squelch and bent drone of “Tuna” and the abandoned
supermarket echoes of “Grocery Store” lull me into gentle plasticity,
the wind tunnel whine of “Regain,” the fractured beat spatter of
“Topwayjam” and the full tilt chaos of “Rinse and Repeat” (which
sounds like he’s switched on every appliance in the house) fit right
in with the tumultuous chaos and wanton beat collision that is Spark’s
trademark sound. Not quite breakbeat and not quite noise, Spark
certainly has a touch for making chaotic music that has a thousand
layers of density to it. Morbid Chillout shows Wilcox branching out,
dropping the BPMs into long tone areas and setting aside the slice and
dice for some drift and glide.
John McCaig is Fell and, as his bio says, “he makes music because he
can’t make film.” While being denied what you want certainly sucks,
we’re lucky that he’s still a creative outlet. His first release for
en:peg is A Victim and it certainly evokes visions of cinematic
landscapes. “Hemans Dub” sets the stage with a slow crawl through a
slumbering urban setting, the bass echoing beneath you like the sub
woofer from a nearby car, distant voices swirling like conversations
from half-lit street corners and the slow ping of a round melody that
rings down on you like cones of light. “Open Up For Me” avalanches
percussion and dub echoes over a series of eavesdropped conversations,
while light-addled melodies cascade through the dusty aftermath of the
collasping rhythms. Dub rolls through a good part of the record,
adding a rich texture to the downtempo melodies (think an
instrumental, more dubbed-out version of Snooze or a less self-aware
David Holmes). If McCaig shoots film like he makes music, his work
will be vibrant, kinetic and infused with a great deal of neon
reflections and rain-drenched atmospheres. A Victim is a great little
dub downtempo record (and solid debut for McCaig) which highlights
en:peg’s mission: inexpensive mp3-only releases means everyone gets
to experiment, including the label by opening up territories in which
they don’t normally traffic.
ML’s record, Good Morning, is straight up electro, the beats bubbling
like chemical gases expanding and the chirping melodies caught in the
spiraling updraft from the percolating drum programming. “Night
Light” is a symphony of underwater hot springs venting, the
proliferation of air bubbles nearly occluding the metallic synth
programming. “Why You So Lazy?” spangs and pops with fulsome
electronic echoes before diving into robotic vocoder effects and
digital phat bass as if the song were nothing more than a mechanical
pop song offering commentary on the human race by the perpetually
alert artificial intelligences of the 22nd century. Strange voices
crop up again in “Crazy About You” when the Chipmunks turn from their
pseudo-punk days into modern era laptop junkies and Alvin does live
DSP effects on his voice. Good Morning is spirited electronics, an
hour of carbonated rhythms and warm analog melodies. It’s not nearly
as calamitous as Spark’s headstrong processor collision and hovers
just off-shore of the electronic music mainland, half submerged in the
warm ocean currents. It’s ambient IDM — aural wallpaper that coats
your room with warm watery echoes. Engaging and soothing.
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All releases are currently available at www.enpeg.com.
